Fall is here!

It is clearly getting colder. Munich already feels like sweaters and tights.

I believe Autumn is Europe’s most cherished season. Mine too. I am not a fan of the incoming winter but I love fall. Fall is absolutely gorgeous. It brings the radiant red and golden in everything and the air smells burning leaves.

Nature is amazing considering the way it manipulates my disposition. It is pudding and cakes now. And dampfnudel. Time for candles and Halloween. All the same with Halloween it is officially winter. Again the good part is, it is such a great time for reading (I am a winter-house-worm) and drinking gluhwein. Ok my disposition is a lot towards food.

All of you reading this, do let me know what are the things fall brings back to your mind.

Almost everyone is going to the mountains now. I am having such a tough luck with my plan of spending a weekend camping in a mountain cottage. In two weeks I am going home and when I come back perhaps it is going to be too late to make a trip. This time again I will push it to next year.

Anyway have a great autumn time everyone!

Barcelona ..spent and burnt

I couldn’t have picked a better place for a sunny holiday, my self-spurred popular vacation of the season.

We, I and Olga were in Barcelona last week. It was all in all nice 4 days of fun.. 4 days of scorching sun and beach. I just loved the trip.

I am so well out of tune with the undisturbed way of travelling, it is a wonder now if anything isn’t amiss. My flight was at 7:25 in the morning to Barcelona. At 6:15 when my father called I was still sleeping. Usually I am too stirred up to sleep tight the previous night before traveling. What followed was a miracle play. We managed everything, got a taxi and checked in 10 min before the departure. I thought about checking in online the previous evening but didn’t do it. Glad they did let us board!

When we landed in Barcelona the temperature was an easy 38 degrees. We didn’t go about doing much on the first day. We took a walk through the city center and La Rambla, gazing around all the beautifully set up road side shops. It was only a weekday and the city was animated with tourists. We checked into our hotel late in the afternoon and didn’t mind staying in the hotel after the long walk. The evening was more endurable despite the heat. We went to the beach and helped ourselves to some striking Catalan dishes and its sparkling wine.

The next day was more fun. We were at the beach early in the morning. The cool ocean was a welcome to the baking heat. We did some amazing snorkeling. True to what I was told it was mostly sand. There were so few rocks. We could only see small fishes. Whatever I didn’t want to miss the beautiful ocean.

Afternoons were best spent in the hotel snoozing. We were more than willing to explore Barcelona in the evening. Everything was so alive, the vibes kept us bustling until 3 in the morning. All the European architecture, churches, monuments seem so much in agreement to each other, I rather preferred walking to visiting each one of them.

It was more or less the same every day ..snorkeling in the morning and thumping the streets in the evening. I also met up with JJ and others briefly. Didn’t do anything particular.. just curled up chatting. We tried paella and tapas. With eyes bigger than our hunger for all the delicacies, we ended up ordering a helping or two extra only to have a nice fat bill and strove to finish. In any case it was absolutely divine eating only seafood the four days.

I should get away like this more often than I think I should from the work-worn-thin routine of mine.

In the end I couldn’t manage to see their bull sport La Corrida ..ok I had planed on doing too many things in 4 days.

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Saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this week. Was planning to right from the day it opened in Cinema. I liked the movie, proving otherwise to the disappointments of the earlier movies. Thankfully the movie isn’t swallowed up in darkness as typical with the older ones. Apparently, HP also makes a movie in the theatre in a long time. The film is slow moving given there isn’t much action to this part. But all that budding adolescent attraction doesn’t go unnoticed. The characters have grown which kind of takes away the topping. The younger trio was lot more fun.

I am somehow taken in by this book, not because of the story but it is Dumbledore. I was almost tearful with the ending yesterday. Otherwise too I wasn’t in very high spirits yesterday which rightly did the undoing. It wouldn’t be surprising if I did say a funeral prayer…

Public Enemies is in the list next. Possibly I can manage it next week or the week after.

Within OUR frames

This post has been brewing as to say for weeks now.

With all my trips home, it is invariably an attempt to post some pictures and the story continuously beside.

Having written the first part (and hoping it will add some color to the post) let me get on before I decide to set it down completely.

It was altogether a bad start. After landing up in India, in just a couple of hours I had my luggage stolen. Feels great. I flew to Bangalore the next day I landed in Delhi. On our way home from the airport, we stopped to have dinner in a restaurant. After dinner we returned to find one of the the car windows broken and the bag gone. There begins my travel errand!!

This is from our trip to Tirumala. In one way or the other, visiting some temple town is always on the cards when I am in India.

Divya and I in the jeep in a state of impatient expectancy about our road trip through the seven hills.

The chilly freshness of the place surpasses every other excellence. I wanted to stop in and take some pictures but the driver didn’t conceive it as a wise thing.

With the many advertisements about leopards and wild elephants, it was a close call to realizing my safari dream to the extent that I had my fingers crossed to seeing some wildlife. We drove through for about 3 hours and luckily saw nothing.

This is a very shaken picture of Appa but one I liked the best… a very gleeful him talking about his first trip to these hills with my mother after their wedding. Hmm sweet memories ..fine let me save him the unease and say no further.

In bus only the two of us. Amma, Appa and Annu were doing the customary-last-minute-buying. Being a parent (yes one day I am going to be one) ..why is it that we grow up but they don’t. Like Appa asking the driver to take care of us. It was amusing. In a while the driver peacefully locked us inside and went for a stroll.

Anyhow he was really nice. 1. he drove us right up to our bus back to Bangalore. He drove with just the 5 of us. We told him if he waits long we will miss our next bus. 2. he bought us verkadalai. When people are nice I find them unexpectedly very nice. May be because I am immune to such niceties… well people are good and kind in north too.

Our next visit was to Shravanabelagola. It was all planned very suddenly the same morning. We had intended to drive to my father’s native village that day. It was just an afterthought as all of us were surprisingly up by 4 AM and running.

This one is a pick from that morning’s 5-o’clock-photo- shoot. It is so with Appa and Divya, never tired of taking pictures. Thanks to them we are thoroughly bored of our repeated pictures.

I and Annukutti on the top of the hill in Shravanabelagola ..and my second misgiving

Just after this picture, aware(ingly) I leaned back resting on the poles. In a sudden jolt one of the vertical poles came loose. My vigil was only through chance that day. It WAS daunting for a moment. They did have warning boards but I happen to see them a little late. Seems I was in store of lot of luck

This is our sole surviving picture. Not a great photo but like said the only one with all of us in it. With our continuing attempt to have a appeasing photo together, I now appreciate anything close to it.

We continued to my father’s village from here. The place is a natural spree ..paddy fields, coconut groves, sugarcane stalks, banana plants.

Living in Delhi I have been here only occasionally. My school vacations were mostly about coming to Bangalore. In the last years those visits grew seldom too.

I miss the oldies… the river, the smell of burning wood, the temple festivities, the long walks to the bus stand, nights slept in open watching the sky and the fireflies. I wonder if there is another such place with so many fireflies.

This was on the day before Divya flew back to UK.. saying bye to friends and family.

Here the devil in disguise ..Annukutti for her school annual function performance.

This is my other best picture. I thought she looked really nice with all the crazy make up but then ONLY I thought. As put, the black-n-white effect is more appealing and I better comply along rather risk open fire.

Amma and Appa on Karthika Deepam. So has been my trip home. It is us so far. In our world. The nearest it will be his and later ours.

Home is where the heart is. I miss them ..more and more frequently these days. The same, being there is nice only for a couple of days… the novelty wears off. I am like a fish out of water restless to get back to a life I have spun without them. They understand.

Yes as Ayn Rand says loving is exception making. Ok my mind wanders too much..

of then and now

Hopping now and then… it has been a long way. Some bittersweet euphoria my mind is enjoying today…

Some interesting pieces slipped my mind of who I was and who I am now. It is as if I am still small and juvenile. In a broader sense, I haven’t changed. But I have grown big and probably have become more sophisticated.

I remember well how scared I was to sleep on the side of the bed. I had this feeling that some monster would come from behind or from under the bed and carry me away.  And some nights I would lay awake too scared to sleep. I always slept in the middle in between. Now me and my sisters fight over the one to sleep in between and with no choice it is always Annukkutti.

I hated visiting a doctor or going to a hospital. I used to feel so helpless and depressed. I still hate going to hospital.

I held a bitter detest to newspapers and TV news. I never understood how my parents enjoyed NEWS then. In the beginning it was Doorshan Samachar then came Aaj Tak and later Sun News. And Appa was never happy listening to just one. He has to listen to each and every news.

I hated eating upma/puttu/appam (upma the most) on weekends. I was obsessively happy with bread, Amul butter and Kissan jam. I could eat just bread the whole week.

Going to a restaurant wasn’t a normal thing. Appa would complain if we picked a far one. Amma would complain if we picked an expensive one. Not to screw up the offer we settled for any restaurant. I could eat even upma in a restaurant. Now my lazy bones do the job of driving me to eat out and mostly with no company.

I love marie biscuits and milk rusk. My favorite snack ..something I ate everyday in the evening. Now I eat chocolate chip cookies. Exactly how cappuccino is filling for filter coffee.

My favorite toffee was coffeebite. I was always eager to go buy some grocery for my mother when I needed money to buy toffees. I remember once my sister cut her hand with a blade and it was bleeding quite badly. My mother tied a piece of cloth and asked me to buy some band aids. But I bought all toffees.

Another thing was my father’s shaving blades. They were somehow very inviting. And he would always know every time we play around with the blades. Knives and blades are too inviting even today.

Amma used to have bad heel cracks and times it hurt her very much when she walked. She always kept some spare plasters. And she would never find one when she needed them. We would be hardly hurt but only a plaster could appease as long as there is a plaster at home. It was more of a mental relief than a physical relief.

Visiting cousins was always fun and something to look forward. I even used to write letters to my grandmother. Now they all are a phone call distance away and I care enough about visiting them just in my head.

My aunt used to tell me (however I can’t recollect) I would wear lipstick to stay awake when I went for a night show. I was too worried too fall asleep in the middle of the movie to get the lipstick smudged over my face.

Back then Amma used to scold me everyday. I used to fight with Divya. I saw my friends everyday. And now days go by when I don’t speak to anybody.

No idea what triggered the post. Hope something makes sense. Well here a compliment for reading the whole post [;)]